Have an AC-powered system that needs to supply DC voltages from 2 VDC up to 28 VDC? Martek’s 400 W MW400S power module with active Power Factor Correction (PFC) is designed specifically for A&D as well as industrial apps. Feed the unit 90-265 VAC, single phase, at 47-440 Hz, and it’ll deliver 2, 3.3, 5, 12, 15, and 28 VDC outputs at .99 PFC with 82 percent efficiency at full load. Pretty impressive. And it’s clean, too. Line harmonics meet MIL-STD-1399 for 60 Hz or 400 Hz, and EMI meets CE101 and CE102 of MIL-STD-461. Designed to operate from -40 °C to +100 °C (from zero to full load), the brick can be remotely turned on and off via TTL. MW400S also has features that microelectronics designers love. They include: output voltage trim, overvoltage/overcurrent protection, AC and DC “good TTL signal,” and a fixed-frequency (500 to 550 KHz) conversion with synchronization input. Even better, the module is reasonably small considering all these features and power: 6.5" x 8.0" x 1.0" (165 mm x 203 mm x 25.4 mm).

With all the hubbub surrounding VITA’s large I/O VPX moving to OpenVPX and then to VITA 65, A&D designers are understandably wary. Instead, they might reconsider 6U CompactPCI’s high-pin-count backplane. Supporting PICMG’s 2.16 Dual GbE Packet Switching backplanes – the “original fabric” implementation – Concurrent Technologies’ PP 452/03x uses one of two Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs to move data around. The two PMC/XMC sites add additional I/O functionality, and the board is available in ruggedized and conduction-cooled variations. Soldered CPU options include Intel’s L7400 (1.5 GHz) or ULV U7500 (1.06 GHz), each with 4 MB of L2 cache for 64-bit operating systems. Chipsets are Intel’s E7520 and 6300ESB ICH – both designed with lower-power applications in mind. The CPU can talk with up to 4 GB of DDR2-400 ECC at up to 6.4 GBps. I/O from the PMC/XMCs routes down via 66 MHz PCI-X and x4 PCIe, and XMC site number 1 also supports x8 PCIe. Front- and rear-I/O options abound. PP 452/03x features two SATA150, one RS-232, three USB 2.0, and dual GbE ports. We already mentioned PICMG 2.16 (Ethernet fabric), but there’s also PICMG 2.9 (IPMI) and PICMG 2.1 (hot swap). An onboard 4 GB flash disk is included, as are options for EIDE CompactFlash. If your system needs this kind of server-class I/O and processing while operating on a power budget of less than 35 W, consider this one.

So embedded usually means DC-powered electronics sometimes run by batteries. But military systems are different: They can require high DC voltages (28 VDC for vetronics) and even high-current AC in many airborne platforms. Alternating current is more efficient in these instances and is eventually converted into DC for the electronic suites. Chroma Systems Solutions offers a way to rig three 18 KW 1- and 3-phase units in parallel to source up to 54 KW. The lab testing-oriented 61500 and 61600 series are programmable and use advanced DSP algorithms to generate very clean sine waves with a total distortion that’s less than 0.5 percent at 50/60 Hz. Designed to test aerospace systems in accordance with MIL-STD-704F, RTCA DO-160D, and ABD100, the units offer power line disturbance simulation, programmable output impedance, wave-shape synthesis, and the ability to simulate harmonic components in the waveforms to simulate dirty power often found in deployed applications. Front-panel programmability includes an LCD and keypad, along with remote control via GPIB, RS-232, USB, or Ethernet. LabVIEW drivers are even available. Despite reviewing the company’s website, we were unable to determine the differences between the 61500 and the 61600, though perhaps the 61500 allows precompliance test software configuration.

MicroTCA continues to buzz around military applications because it brings leading-edge communications capabilities from civilian land and cellular networks into Aerospace and Defense (A&D). When bolted atop a 1U MicroTCA carrier, Performance Technologies’ AMC123 provides a ready-to-go, out-of-the-box network designed for LTE, WiMAX, media and signaling gateways ... or military comms systems. The x86-based module uses Intel’s EP80579 integrated processor, one of the first of Intel’s reentry into the Microcontroller market a la their former 80196 series. This Pentium M-based MCU includes a 32 KB L1 (split for I and D), 256 KB two-way L2, integrated I/O controller hub, four-channel EDMA, SpeedStep power and clock management, and a 400/533 MHz FSB. Up to 16 GB onboard flash stores the OS, program, and data sets, while up to 4 GB of PC2-5300 DRAM with ECC provides scratchpad storage. Flash can also be configured to run via USB 2.0. Three GbE ports can be routed as: one to the front panel and two to the AMC card edge, or two at the front panel and one to the card edge. AMC123 is also equipped with a front-panel USB 2.0 port and status LEDs, plus an eight-lane PCIe and two SATA ports routed to the AMC connector. But hardware’s just hardware. What makes the AMC123 special is Performance Technologies’ system features, including NexusWare, which is the company’s family of Linux software products. There’s the Carrier Grade Linux package, NexusWare Studio for software development, and a remote systems management tool called NexusWare Portal. After all, Performance Technologies is the company that brought PICMG 2.16 Ethernet to the masses, along with myriad other innovations now standard across the communications and VME industries.

PICMG's COM Express form factor puts the CPU subsystem on the mezzanine and the system-specific I/O on the carrier card. This approach keeps the portion of the system that changes most with the market – the CPU – on a life-cycle upgradeable COTS daughtercard. American Portwell's PCOM-B214VG Type II COM Express board uses Intel's latest 1.8 GHz N270 Atom processor and up to 2 GB of single channel DDR2 SDRAM in a small form factor that measures a mere 125 mm x 95 mm (L x W).

The board uses industry standard 200-pin SODIMM memory, 945GSE and ICH7-M chipsets, and consumes only 10 W in fanless, portable military designs. I/O includes EIDE (with Ultra DMA 100/66/33), two SATA ports, three x1 PCIe, four PCI, and AC97 for high-def audio, along with eight USB ports and one for GbE. Graphics support via the Intel chipset is 2,048 x 1,536 at 85 Hz driving CRT, LVDS, TV-out, and SDVO.

If vendors like GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms are going to introduce VME boards like the V8775, they're going to follow the desktop PC trend: Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs and lots of I/O. GE's new SBC is no exception. It uses Intel's 2.53 GHz T9400 mobile CPU with 6 MB of L2 cache, backed up by 4 GB of DDR3 SDRAM and a x16 PCIe interface with the GM45 chipset. This CPU is noted for its ability to execute decent DSP math computation, and the super large memory makes matrix operations possible. But this is a VME board, and the VME ecosystem hasn't been ignored in favor of desktop-like I/O.

For instance, there's a VXS (VITA 41.3) GbE option, and the onboard twin GbE ports are routed to the front panel. Also included are dual SATA, four USB 2.0, and two serial ports. The board includes one PMC/XMC site, but an optional mezzanine board adds three more. An optional ATI Radeon E2400 GPU provides another x16 PCIe, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, and full HD HDMI. Designers can eschew the optional VXS and onboard PMC/XMC in favor of an eSATA port, one USB 2.0, and two more GbE ports.

We city wimps whine when we miss an off-ramp or if the 12 V connector dislodges from our suction-cup-mounted GPS nav unit. But what do soldiers and Marines do when they're humping through the mountains and need a sit rep? They just might pull a GETAC PS535F rugged PDA from their rucksack. This handheld is not only a useful computer, but it also contains a 3 megapixel autofocus camera, altimeter, and E-compass.

The sunlight-readable 3.5" VGA touch screen is useful for moving maps, waypoints, or other Windows Mobile 6.1 software apps. Powered by a 533 MHz Samsung 2450 CPU with 128 Mb of MDDR and 2 GB of NAND flash, the unit can last up to eight hours on a battery charge. The altimeter and E-compass functions provide advanced navigation including longitude, latitude, and altitude, and the unit can connect to GIS servers or military databases via Bluetooth modem or mobile phone. Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) can be used when up-/down-loading collected telemetry or images. The PS535F weighs only 10.6 oz.

Since we seem to be on an avionics kick this month, here's another airborne product set worthy of distinction: dB Control's Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) Microwave Power Modules (MPMs). This family of four MPMs provides up to a whopping 1,500 W in Continuous Wave (CW) or pulsed varieties. The RAM- or ECS air-cooled transmitters are conduction cooled and designed for extremely rugged environments while providing high reliability and EMI compliance to MIL-STD-461E.

Available in four flavors, the LRU-style MPMs are modularly designed to meet off-the-shelf and custom requirements: High-band transmitter, 6-18 GHz with 1,500 W at 5 percent duty cycle; high-band CW transmitter, 6-18 GHz with 100 W CW pulse; dual high-band transmitter, 6.5-18 GHz, 200 W per channel CW or pulse; and single low-band transmitter, 2-7 GHz, 200 W CW or pulse. All use highly efficient, mini-helix Traveling Wave Tube (TWT) technology with a low-noise, solid-state driver amplifier. They're also extremely compact and offer flexible packages for easy customization.

Those of us in the digital realm are used to sub-5 VDC voltages … and occasionally we can think in terms of 28 VDC in vetronics applications. But avionics guys and gals dream of bigger numbers: on the order of 270 VDC. Higher voltages mean lower currents and smaller diameter wires (but with fancier dielectric insulation, to be sure). Running these kinds of voltages around airframes requires up- and down-converters at equipment nodes. Vicor's MIL-COTS Bus Converter Modules are designed to do just that, at efficiencies exceeding 95 percent.

The VMB0004MFJ (J-lead) and VMB0004MFT (through-hole) are designed to work with the company's 28 VDC PRM interface device to power loads operating from 1-50 VDC. Accepting inputs from 240-330 VDC, the BCM spits out an unregulated secondary voltage of 30-41.25 V at a nominal 235 W. The 95 percent efficient Sine Amplitude Converter (SAC) boasts an astounding 829 W/in3 and Vicor claims a system footprint reduction of more than 40 percent. Built-in undervoltage, overvoltage lockout, overcurrent protection, short circuit protection, and overtemperature protection make at-the-node voltage conversion much easier and safer. Priced at around $105 in OEM quantities, avionics voltages might be complex, but designing the power conversion nodes doesn't need to be.

As the image shows, the PIP22 from MPL AG is made in Switzerland – and has just about as many features as the famous army knife. Designed for rugged industrial applications, the PC product relies on a Core 2 Duo L7400 off of Intel's rugged roadmap in order to promise a minimum five-year product life cycle. Operating from -40 °C to +65 °C, the fanless design is impressive in that it requires no CPU derating but still consumes a mere 30 W, fed from a range of 8-28 VDC (optionally 18-48 VDC). The case size is 270 mm x 162 mm, with heights ranging from 62, 83, or 120 mm depending upon internal options.

Promising a high MTBF due to mostly soldered components, the PIP22 can accommodate up to 3 GB of DRAM (1 GB soldered) but comes equipped with graphics (via Intel's 945GME), dual 10/100/1000 Ethernet, FireWire 800, USB 2.0, and RS-232/422/485 (two plus two optional). The unit talks to a variety of HDDs via one EIDE and two SATA ports; it also includes the standard PC/2, parallel, and even a legacy bootable floppy port. Best of all for defense applications, the shoebox is internally expandable via optional modules on PCIe minicard, PC/104-Plus, PMC, or PCI. Finally, really rugged specs are achieved via EMC (EN 55022, EN 55024, EN 61000, and MIL-STD-461E) and shock and vibration (EN 60068). Here's another shoebox ready to be kicked around.

When we see circular Connectors, it usually means rugged, and this product is no exception. ADLINK Technology has taken their system design to the next level for the most extreme environmental conditions with the new MilSystem 800. Using a proven board design from their industrial-strength RuffSystem, they’ve tuned the enclosure to the point that it now passes MIL-STD-810 tests for shock and vibration and operates within a wide temperature range of -40 °C to +75 °C. In a small 8" x 10" x 3" conduction-cooled enclosure, this system can go where many cube-shaped and rack-mount systems can’t.

Previous Editor’s Choice description from the Military Embedded Systems March/April edition:

“Really rugged Pentium M 'shoebox' for kicks”

“With DoD budgets sure to be adjusted as President Obama changes U.S. foreign policy, the demand for low-cost yet rugged electronics is bound to accelerate. ADLINK is betting heavily on this trend, using their Ampro group to design mil-style industrial PCs that can go the distance. The company's 8" x 10" x 3" MilSystem 800 uses the shipboard-deployed RuffSystem 800 with uprating, derating, and ruggedizing tricks pulled right from the conduction-cooled board market. This 1.4 GHz Pentium M system boasts 1 GB of DDR memory, optional 32 GB of SSD, and up to 16 GB of rugged CF, or an HDD.”

“I/O comes out the front in the form of 38999-style military connectors, fed by 10/100/1000 Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, four serial ports, audio/video, PS/2, IDE, SATA, and an additional 55 user-defined I/O signals. But the core of this system is its rugged cost effectiveness. Designed to operate over -40 °C to +75 °C, the system uses a derated and guard-banded PSU, soldered CPU and Northbridge, thicker 0.093" PWB, and is backed by 901, 810, and HALT testing to prove survivability on the battlefield. This is one shoebox that can get kicked around.”

Intended for brilliant but low-cost sound in consumer audio applications such as iPod-like devices and PC speakers, QuickFilter Technologies claims its QF1Da512 SavFIRe (rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) is the first audio-specific FIR filter to include an integrated gain and compressor stage. The point of the device is to boost audio quality to low-cost speakers and headphones. While the typical war fighter might be using an MP3 player only while on R&R, myriad tactical battlefield situations could definitely benefit from improving poor quality voice audio played over less-than-ideal speakers and headsets. The SavFIRe (pronounced “sapphire”) doesn’t require a separate gain stage device after the audio enhancement function; it’s built right in.

By including the gain stage on-chip, overall design complexity and audio distortion are reduced, while end-to-end performance is increased. The built-in compression feature performs sample by sample and has an instant attack and release, with a curve slope that changes with gain. The gain block provides up to 24 dB of positive digital gain, resulting in maximum dynamic range without distortion. The FIR supports up to 512 taps with 32-bit coefficients and a user-defined word width of 12-24 bits. The device performs the equivalent of 50 MMACs and supports 1 Hz to 500 KHz sample rates – smack dab into higher-price DSP territory. The SavFIRe is packaged in a 3 x 3 mm QFN package and consumes only 2.8 mW – ideal for battery-operated radios or headsets.

Admit it: Naps are a luxury on the weekend after the lawn’s been cut or the e-mails have all been dispositioned. Same thing holds for Kontron’s conduction-cooled CP3210, which boasts a mere 10 W consumption when its PowerPC 750FX is slowed down and put into “nap mode.” This 3U CompactPCI SBC is ideal for retrofits into small spaces such as avionics bays, UAVs, or portable systems. Operating over -40 °C to +85 °C, the board doubles the amount of system and user flash over its predecessor, the Thales PowerEngineC7. (Kontron purchased Thales Computers in 2008.) Operating at 733 MHz, the PowerPC G3 is fed by 512 MB of DDR SDRAM with ECC, 128 MB of system flash, and 256 MB of user flash. There’s also 128 KB of nvSRAM with a real-time clock. Even on this small 3U board, you’ll find two serial ports, along with 10/100 and 1000 Gbps Ethernet ports and a 33/66 MHz PMC expansion connector set. An optional PMC carrier board for an adjacent slot accommodates a second PMC mezzanine. The CP3210 boasts PowerOn BIT, an open source U-Boot loader, VxWorks BSP, ElinOS embedded Linux, and is DO-178B and ARINC 653 certifiable when running Sysgo’s PikeOS.

If you’ve ever wandered around a defense tradeshow such as MILCOM or AUSA, you’ve seen all kinds of COTS chassis bolted into TOCs or lashed down to HWMMVs. So when we saw the DNR-6-1G HalfRACK from United Electronic Industries (UEI), we immediately saw the similarities. The six-slot, stackable, portable I/O chassis consumes only half a rack at 5.25" x 6.2" x 17.5" and is ideal for purpose-built, space-constrained rugged temp I/O installations.

The base configuration consists of two 10/100/1000 Ethernet interfaces, Freescale 8347 32-bit CPU, RS-232, 128 MB of memory, status LEDs, and power supply. Users can add any 6 of more than 30 I/O boards available from UEI, providing a jaw-dropping “5 quadrillion possible combinations.” Folks, we don’t have that much room here to list them all – but suffice it to say that a typical HalfRACK can hold up to 150 A/D, 288 DIO, 192 D/A, 72 ARINC 429, and more. The chassis withstands 3 g vibration, 50 g shock, and -40 °C to +70 °C. It also has a carry handle and cute little feet for desktop use.

MIL-STD-1553 is a reality in military systems, right alongside Ethernet, Multicore processors, and even Wi-Fi. But with all these newer, bigger, and hotter devices, there’s little room left for the lowly – albeit essential – 1553 devices. The BU-64843T “Total-ACE” from Data Device Corporation (DDC) understands the designer’s dilemma. At only 0.6" x 1.10", the 312-ball (24 x 13 matrix) PBGA package is so small that it’ll fit almost anywhere.

Combining dual transceivers, dual transformers, a protocol engine, and 4K words of internal RAM, the Total-ACE runs on a single 3.3 VDC source. It operates over an industrial temperature range of -40 °C to +100 °C, is DO-254 certifiable, and can be made available in RoHS-compliant versions. Most importantly, DDC, as a recognized leader in integrated MIL-STD-1553 devices, renders this latest device as hardware and software compatible with the company’s earlier devices such as the Mini-ACE.

Choices abound in SDR and wireless front-end receivers, but try moving data the other direction and the offerings become more sparse. Capitalizing on the reality of an analog world, FPGA design expert Innovative Integration has developed the X5-TX PCI Express XMC module, providing four 500 MSps, 16-bit DAC outputs and a Xilinx V-5 FPGA core. But what’s equally impressive is that the channels can be aggregated to provide what Innovative Integration calls dual channels of “true 1 GSps, 16-bit rate” data without interpolation.

Designed for radio, radar, and direct RF digitizing applications, the mezzanine module is equipped with either a Virtex-5 SX95T or LX155T FPGA, 512 MB of DDR2 DRAM, and 4 MB of QDR-II SRAM for DSP functions. The architecture supports 300 GMAC/s, and 1 GBps sustained data transfer over PCIe (eight lane). There are also Serial RapidIO links for private data transfer. Most importantly, Innovative Integration has included a MATLAB BSP for hardware-in-the-loop development, which ties to Xilinx Simulink, and IP cores for multichannel PSK and FSK Software-Defined Radios. C++ libraries, plus drivers for Windows and Linux, are also included. The comprehensive software complement is based upon Innovative Integration’s 20 years of system design expertise.

Sadly, it’s become fodder for late-night comedy routines: A tired civil servant or military official leaves a USB stick, portable hard drive, or laptop in a café and suddenly next month’s battle plans are posted on the Internet. But it’s no joke. At press time, White Electronic Designs was getting ready to announce their ZoneLoc Security for data storage devices. Though details are still a bit sketchy, Military Embedded Systems got enough early access for us to enthusiastically report what might be game-changing technology. Implemented on multiple flash formats – including CompactFlash, USB, SSD, or other flash media – ZoneLoc does away with crypto keys and automatically purges data when the device is removed from its defined “area.”

The technology is compatible with the following military specifications: NISPOM DoD 5220.22-M, NSA-130-2, Air Force AFSSI-5020, Army AR380-19, and Navy NAVSO P-5239-26. The scalable solution can be designed for one type of device, then migrated into other flash-type formats, maximizing both code reuse and security procedures. The designer specifies a zone proximity boundary and a pre-established set of parameters for each application. The boundary can be tied to a fixed location such as a workstation, or made portable in the case of USB sticks. In all cases, if the device is removed, no human involvement is required and the data is purged. Configurable features include audible warnings, programmable response times (in case one forgets before yanking out an SSD), and even wireless, autonomous remote data purging.

Although not technically a “new” product, Green Hills Software’s INTEGRITY-178B has earned a coveted Editor’s Choice Award from Military Embedded Systems magazine for being the first major software product to achieve NIAP certification to EAL6+. INTEGRITY is COTS RTOS technology that has been deployed for more than a decade. This certification sets a new standard to which other vendors of security-critical software products can aspire. The certification is unquestionably an industry milestone event.

The NSA’s National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) certifies software to Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) ranked from 1 to 7, with 7 being the highest. INTEGRITY-178B achieved 6+ “High Robustness” and is certified to “protect classified information and other high-value resources at risk of attack from hostile and well-funded attackers.” INTEGRITY-178B also achieved its first safety certification to DO-178B Level A in 2002. It’s no understatement that the company and its DoD sponsors have invested considerably in achieving the EAL6+ certification. Already, Green Hills is rolling out other related high-robustness products for mission, safety, and information assurance critical applications.

Designing military development systems can be simpler using CompactPCI, especially when a lot of communications interfaces and protocols are involved. But throw in the typical military I/O such as ARINC 429, myriad serial ports, and discrete TTL, and your CompactPCI COTS choices diminish. North Atlantic Industries seeks to change all that with their 78CS2 6U CompactPCI multimodule I/O card. By placing configurable I/O on function modules, the board can be outfitted with five modules and a plethora of I/O. Moreover, the board is available to operate over -40 ?C to +85 ?C.

Besides a built-in GbE port that allows the board to be used as a stand-alone sensor (without a separate SBC), 78CS2 also includes continuous BIT with transparent programming and operation. Included are: ARINC 429/575 (6 channels); RS-232/422/485 (4 channels); D/S (2 channels); D/LVDT (2 channels); S/D (4 channels); LVDT/D (4 channels); A/D and D/A (10 channels, each); AC synchro reference generator, discrete I/O (16 channels); TTL (16 channels); transceiver I/O (11 channels); and … wait for it … RTD (6 channels). Incredible. If CompactPCI is your format of choice, the 78CS2 deserves a close look.

Those who want 100 percent perfection are typically said to have "unrealistic expectations," but it appears that Emerson Network Power is aiming to come pretty darn close with its High Availability (HA) Avantellis middleware. Avantellis is geared toward industrial and military apps requiring "greater than 5NINES availability," Emerson reports. With the final .001 looming somewhere in the equation, Avantellis middleware is the first commercially available incarnation of the Service Availability Forum's (SA Forum's) OpenSAF open source code base.

As with most middleware, resigning Avantellis to just one application or system would be nearly impossible because of its inherent adaptability to many OSs, processors, and hardware platforms. The portable, modular Avantellis, which utilizes the SA Forum's Hardware Platform Interface (HPI), also complies with the SA Forum's Application Interface Specification (AIS). AIS provides an Availability Management Framework to coordinate a distributed computing environment's redundant resources without any one point of failure, and monitors component status inside the cluster. Also offered is the LCK/GLSv distributed lock service, allowing shared resource access coordination on multinode applications. And finally, one more notable among myriad others is the Checkpoint Service (CKPT/CPSv), which affords a facility where checkpoint data can be recorded incrementally and retrieved after switchover or failover; then execution can commence once again in a correct state.

The joke is that some COTS electronics go obsolete with the changing Christmas buying seasons, making it very difficult for mil programs to stock some surface-mount technology ICs over a 10-year period. However, Interconnect Systems Inc. is aiming to thwart the obsolescence Grinch via their footprint-conversion-enabling FlexFrame adapters. FlexFrame is designed to replace many oft-obsolete j-lead and SMT gullwing IC packages such as PLCCs, QFPs, SOICs, and TSOPs.

Called “FlexFrame” because of its flexibility, the adapter includes several standoff heights, “unique” pitch and pin location, and carrier windows allowing center-of-interconnect component placement. The high availability FlexFrame design accomplishes its mission via PhosBronze pins tucked inside a FR4 carrier, then shaped and curved to mimic the IC package’s j-leads or gullwing. A reliable interconnect is then formed once FlexFrame’s connector is soldered between the host PCB and the adapter. Now, if only FlexFrame could just keep this year’s stash of Christmas gifts and electronic gadgets from going obsolete … maybe next year.

What fails first on your cell phone – the phone itself, or that flimsy little connector that recharges it? Although not as spiffy as Multicore CPUs or safety-critical software, the lowly connector can become a critical failure point in any system. And when we're talking about the harshest environments on, below, or off the planet, durable high-temperature contacts become mission critical. With 100,000+ mating cycles, low insertion/extraction, and superior reliability, the HTT Series from Hypertronics is designed to withstand temperatures from -65 °C to a blistering +400 °C.

Target applications include extremely harsh environments such as rocket, jet and turbine engines, industrial machinery, oil and gas exploration, and of course, military. The patented wire basket hyperboloid design creates a 360-degree wiping action, resulting in multiple contact points and "extremely high immunity to shock and vibration." Suffice it to say, these HTT Series contacts are tough.

Everyone wants more: more cash, more horsepower, more leisure time. But when it comes to power consumption on SBCs … less is more. So GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms began pressuring Freescale for lower-power versions of the company's MPC 8641/8641D PowerPCs. The result was the 27 percent lower-power MPC 8640/8640D. Mounted on GE Fanuc's 6U VME VG6, users can configure the SBC with one or two 8640s, as well as 8641s or 8641Ds (for legacy compatibility or configuration-managed programs).

Each CPU node can be equipped with 2 GB of DDR2 ECC memory, with an x8 PCI Express adapter between nodes. There's a total of five Ethernet ports (three Gbps; two 10/100 Mbps), two SATA ports, four serial ports, and six USB 2.0. extension slots provide for PMC/XMC. As well, GE Fanuc's DSP220 VXS and DS230 VPX boards can be equipped with MPC 8640/8640D processors.

Both Microsoft and Intel are on record as stating software is going to be the number one impediment to fully utilizing Multicore processors in today's desktop systems. But rewind back a few years, and before there were multicore CPUs, there were multiprocessor defense systems. Vendors such as SKY Computers learned long ago how to write code, debug, and optimize software spread across dozens and hundreds of processing nodes. The concept of "instrumenting the application" is the basis for SKY's TimeTrac performance optimizing software for Linux-based multiprocessing systems. The dynamic tool is used for fine-tuning and debugging multiprocessor (and multicore) systems.

Originally designed as an in-house tool for SKY's programmers but now available as a COTS package, TimeTrac is also used to measure and optimize algorithm development, modifications, and ultimately system deployment. Through an easy-to-use viewer that minimally intrudes on the application code, key functions include: discovery of application loading and where the system is bogging down; visibility into race conditions; algorithm speedups; processor/node loading identification; communication and semaphore synchronization; and visibility into infrequent runtime problems. In true COTS fashion, the software is downloadable and can be ordered via PayPal.

A handful of rugged COTS vendors has discovered the advantages of offering fully populated and configured subsystems: it proves credibility, it's easy to modify to suit the customer, and it hastens the customer's development cycle. The MPMC-9350i (Intel) and -9350p (PowerPC) Multi-Platform Mission Computer (MPMC) series from Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing (CWCEC) are the company's first Packaged COTS (PCOTS) mission computers. Housed in a conduction-cooled five-slot CompactPCI chassis, the MPMC is targeted for ground vehicles, helicopters, and UAVs.

The box is rugged, having passed DO-160E environmentals for Airborne equipment, plus shock, vibration, ESD, and all the other "ilities" we've come to expect from CWCEC. The 10.72" x 5.11" x 7.62" (L x W x H) box uses three PowerPC 7448 SBCs (DCP-124 and DCP-124P) or three Intel Core 2 Duo SBCs (DCP-1201 and 1201P) with more I/O than we have room to describe. A typical stack-up includes: a Slot 1 CompactPCI system controller with dual 1553 channels; Slot 2 with 32 ARINC-429 channels; Slots 3 and 5 for video; and Slot 4 reserved for the SBCs with PMC mezzanines. Though CWCEC's not the first to offer a prepackaged CompactPCI mission computer, their MPMC is surely the best equipped.

If your defense system can accommodate a 19" rack, your choices for COTS Ethernet switches are abundant. But if you need to deploy your switch in really rough terrain, then VME is likely your form factor of choice. Now you can take your Ethernet and VME on the road with Concurrent Technologies' FP 210/024 24-port managed Ethernet switch. Designed for time-critical voice, video, and data, the Marvell Prestera 98DX240-based 6U card routes 12 ports to the front panel and 12 to P2. There's even an optional rear transition module with 12 RJ45s on it.

Consuming less than 20 W and available in wide temperature and conduction-cooled versions, each port is 10/100/1000 Mbps. Moreover, two of the front panel's ports can be rigged for optical Ethernet connections. The switch's core supports wire-speed and Layer 2 QoS switching and can learn and cache for up to 8192 MAC addresses. Four hardware priority queues are available per port, and the FP 210/024 supports port ID, MAC address, IEEE 802.1p, IEEE 802.1Q, IPv4, and IPv6.

The real world is analog; all this digital stuff is just a convenient way of examining or manipulating it – and even hard-core analog test engineers still need digital computers for analog signal analysis and development. One way to accomplish this is to use WaveEasy from Geotest. The analog waveform development software runs on the company's GX1110 or other third-party arbitrary waveform generators.

Sporting over 40 functions and operators for various waveform file formats, the tool is designed to interactively edit and create analog waveforms in WaveEasy, ASCII (txt, csv, prn), or NI-HWS formats. Line or freehand drawings can be used to create the waveform before mathematical functions turn curves and segments into algorithmic representations. Noise, filters, and other attributes can also be added. Once the waveform has been realized, it can be transferred from the EasyView development environment into ATEasy, LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, or Microsoft Visual Studio – or plugged into your favorite waveform generator. Operators include Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide, and Exponent. There are also math and trig functions such as Ln and Log, COS/SIN/TAN, and various filter types.

No question about it: One can build a very capable RF front-end transceiver out of VME and PMC modules. In fact, Pentek makes some very good boards. But if you want to record, analyze, and play back received data ... well, now you’ve got to add an SBC, an operating system, some disk controllers, a chassis, cables, yadda, yadda. For laboratory and “gently rugged” deployments, Pentek offers a better solution: the RTS 2701 Real-Time Data Recording and Playback System with Multiband Transceiver. This Windows XP workstation is designed to be bolted into a 19" rack or used on a desk. The ready-to-use PC instrument uses a multiband transceiver that’s amazingly flexible. Voice at 8 KHz can be input, all the way up to 60 MHz for wideband radar. Narrow or wideband inputs are allowed, and programmable IF frequencies provide for great RF variety. Twin-channel inputs feed 125 MHz A/D outputting 250 MBps, which eventually gets streamed to up to 5 TB of NTFS disks (RAID 0, 1, 45, 6, 10, and 50) at an aggregate sustained 500 MBps. The system includes a bevy of out-of-the-box software to accomplish the mission, including Pentek’s SystemFlow package with client/server GUI, digital oscilloscope, and spectrum analyzer. Data can be time stamped, and other real-time data can be appended. Finally, the unit can be remotely mounted and connected via Ethernet to allow Internet access via a handy built-in API. What impresses us most about this system is that Pentek appears to have thought of everything. Who would want to try to build one of these, when you can just buy it?

Face it, programming FPGAs is difficult. So when Avnet introduced their Xilinx Spartan-3A FPGA Evaluation Kit earlier this year, designers rushed to plunk down $39 and snap up a couple thousand of them. And why not? Here was a stand-alone platform to tinker with to their heart’s content. Turns out that adding an external programmable Microcontroller to the FPGA can save design time, FPGA gates, and power. So Avnet and Cypress teamed up, bolted on the Cypress CY3217 Programmable SoC, and magically added up to 100 peripheral functions outside the FPGA.

The PSoC enables FPGA configuration and flash memory programming through a built-in USB interface instead of the typical cumbersome serial PROM. Cypress’ MiniProg programmer and downloadable PSoC Designer software add not only the USB feature, but also CapSense touch sensing, clocks, and programmable analog functionality. You know: all those real-world HMI thingys without which a defense system is nothing more than a current sink. In short, this simple external device has greatly enhanced the FPGA eval kit, simplified tabletop designs, and freed up power and resources inside the Xilinx FPGA. Seems like a good trade-off to us.

Developed originally for mass transit applications, the ITT Interconnect Solutions VEAM junction box assembly contains a complete harnessing system for in- and inter-vehicle electrical connections. We can picture the units installed in light rail applications (shown), but the box is just as applicable in light-duty military applications that don’t call for 38999-style screw-on cable assemblies. With rapid deployment the norm these days, add-in COTS equipment latched down to HWMMVs and TOCs still needs to be rugged, but not necessarily to the extent of requiring high-cost MIL-SPEC cable assemblies.

The VEAM includes terminal blocks, cables, and other electrical components designed to provide signal and power. Though each implementation is a custom solution, the target types of functions include control switchboards, CCTV equipment, inter-vehicle comms, power and signal, and motor supplies up to a whopping 660 A. The junction boxes are approved to IP66 standards (Ingress Protection, wet conditions), contacts are rated to 400 A, and the shells and contacts come in a wide variety of configurations. VEAM boxes are available in either standard or harsh environment versions, and complete systems can be tested to meet specific electrical, shock, and vibration specs.

First the good news: Panasonic’s semi-rugged CF-52 and CF-74 notebook computers are now available with Core 2 Duo processors and labeled with Intel Centrino 2 technology. But the bad news: It’s hard to figure out exactly what “Centrino 2” means. Intel’s confusing nomenclature notwithstanding, the 15.4" CF-52 and sunlight-readable 13.3" CF-74 notebooks are now up to speed with Intel’s – ahem! – almost newest notebook processors (just wait a few months). We say that like it’s a bad thing. On the contrary: Panasonic’s Toughbook series is the gold standard for fully- and semi-rugged military laptops.

The company reports that more than 500 checks and tests go into every product before shipment, and that the CPU change is the first major upgrade in each product in more than 12 months of stability; this is a good thing, in light of consumer products like notebooks going obsolete in as little as three months. At the recent Intel Developer Forum, we got a chance to drop-kick a Toughbook and witness a spill test on the keyboard. These babies are tough, and keeping them production stable in their nice magnesium alloy cases with their shock-isolated HDDs is essential for mil duty. Besides the processor upgrade – which when added to the CPU chipset and WiFi radio comprise “Centrino 2” – hard drive capacity goes up to 160 GB, and WiFi gets pumped up to 802.11 Draft N.

While the telcos continue to adopt PICMG’s AdvancedTCA form factor at their own pace, the military is deploying AdvancedTCA (and its mezzanine board, Advanced Mezzanine Card or AMC) for high-density deployed networks and phone systems. This essentially is creating POTS-like VoIP with all the features of a local Internet cloud, including voice, video, and high-speed file movement. Enea has developed its Accelerator Platform 2.0, the second generation of a software package designed specifically to provide carrier-grade teleco services for Kontron AdvancedTCA boards and platforms providing IP-based broadband, VoIP, IPTV, gaming (as in America’s Army), and streaming video.

Enea claims this is the first application-ready platform to “integrate a carrier class Linux OS with middleware, network protocols, embedded management, database software, and DSP management.” The 2.0 version adds support for fine-grain, in-service software upgrades – a critically important attribute in deployed military WANs. Mixed application version management takes the guesswork out of incremental upgrades. Other new features include SA Forum Availability Management, DSP management for data plane blades equipped with DSP farms (think: YouTube codecs or on-the-fly audio processing), HPI shelf management, and support for ConfD. The package also works with Embedded Planet and Mercury Computer’s AdvancedTCA/AMC-based DSP and PowerPC hardware.

SRAMs are fast, but take away Vcc and poof! There goes your data. On the other hand, flash memories retain data when they’re off, but they’re woefully slow when used in place of scratchpad RAM. One compromise between the two is Freescale’s Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM), now available in two extended temperature ranges from e2v Technologies. e2v is a longtime partner, going all the way back to providing military versions of then-Motorola’s PowerPC product line.

MRAMs combine nonvolatility with SRAM speed plus the density of DRAM. Unlike flash (which uses trapped charges in the silicon bulk) or SRAM (which stores bits with conducting transistors), MRAM works by creating magnetic switches on a nanoscopic grid and storing data as electric fields. e2v’s EV2A16A 4 Mb MRAM operates at SRAM speeds of 35 ns read/write, while still offering a standard SRAM interface to make system design a breeze. The 44-lead TSOP device is available in extended (-40 ?C to +110 ?C) and military (-55 ?C to +125 ?C) temperature ranges.

Some of our lucky editors have dual independent displays on their desk, greatly enhancing productivity. So why not do the same with your rugged, deployed defense system? Now Aitech is proving that this type of uber-productivity can be implemented in modern military apps via its M590 multi-standard video and graphics PMC featuring dual independent graphics heads. The hale and hearty PMC is compliant with PCI-X Rev 1.0b and PCI Rev. 2.3 and delivers output from two individual data streams, sending the data to two separate monitors. Video and imaging input streams can also be separated by an onboard FPGA.

M590 – ideal for tactical area moving map applications, advanced sensor fusion, and more – provides 2D and 3D image capture/frame grabbing and video display. It also offers underlay and overlay with resolutions up to 1,536 x 2,048 at refresh rates of 30 to 200 Hz and 32 bits per pixel (Truecolor+) for high-res man-machine interfaces. The 2D and 3D video operations can be unified in several parallel pipelines while preventing internal and external data path overloads. Some of M590's other features worth a double take include: progressive RGBHV/RGsB; LVDS single/double link; composite/S-video supporting NTSC, PAL, and RS-170; external or internal sync; and support of advanced non-interlaced or interlaced monitors. M590 is available in air- or conduction-cooled versions and includes ALT Software's OpenGL 2D and 3D VxWorks and INTEGRITY drivers.

We've said it before, and we'll keep on saying it: The real world is analog – this digital stuff is just a way to manipulate the data. But to do that, it's essential to convert as much high-resolution analog data into the digital domain. To do that requires lots of channels and as many bits as one can cram on a card. Enter GE Fanuc's ICS-1650 high-speed ADC, delivering simultaneous sampling rates up to 250 MHz on four 12-bit analog channels.

Ideal for SDR, SIGINT, radar, and diagnostic imaging apps, the Virtex-5 powered Analog-to-Digital converter provides a four-lane PCI Express bus interface delivering a net payload data rate as fast as 1.25 GBps. Not only that, ICS-1650 affords a continuous data acquisition sampling speed on all four channels in excess of 200 MHz, while providing SFFs (and particularly microATX) with mechanical compatibility. Additionally, users needing help with sometimes-tricky FPGA code development can turn to the ICS-1650's Hardware Development Kit, which includes timing constraints, VHDL source code, ISE projects, and Test Bench. An optional Graychip GC5016 ASIC can be added for more DDC functionality. Then there's the 16 MB QDR II SRAM provided for "scratchpad" use – appropriate since we think the ICS-1650 is something to write home about.

C4ISR on the battlefield is often supplemented by less-than-stellar local surveillance to protect one's own bivouac. At best, single wide-angle optical or IR cameras provide limited Field Of View (FOV), leaving soldiers and Marines partially exposed. The IR Revolution 360 from HGH Infrared Systems is designed to present a 360-degree view with intrusion detection from up to 3 miles away. This single unit can often replace several single- or dual-head cameras set to pan, tilt, or zoom with a fixed FOV.

With an IR resolution of an equivalent 8-12 megapixels, "blobs" can be resolved as threats or merely wildlife. The completely passive camera emits no light and produces a complete 360-degree scan every second, providing near real-time detection and tracking. Data connection is via COTS Ethernet, making setup quick and simple via a point-and-click Windows interface (which doubles as a remote control). The French manufacturer, HGH Infrared Systems, is exclusively represented in America by IRCameras.

Not all military systems are conduction cooled; in fact, most of the systems used in defense applications are convection cooled and often use fans. But have you ever stood next to a cage with 10,000 RPM fans screaming at full throttle? The best solution is to manage those fans with an intelligent controller that can also serve in rugged applications. Such is the case with Degree Controls’ rugged military fan controllers, which meet both MIL-STD-461 for EMI/EMC and MIL-STD-810F for environmental constraints.

The family of products utilizes Microcontroller designs and DegreeC software to monitor system temperatures and adjust fan speed(s) accordingly. Programmable alarm thresholds can be set, along with speed curves that more precisely adjust temperatures to minimize thermal shock or deal with specialized ambient conditions. But beyond just a robust feature set, what sets DegreeC’s products apart is the company itself: a Cage Code (when was the last time you read that term?), ITAR registered, and rigorous test methodologies including HASS, HALT, ESS, MTBF, and all the “ilities” you’d expect from a MIL-SPEC supplier. The company also provides specialized heat sink designs, as well as thermal and airflow sensors.

Electromechanical systems and sensors most often have “spinny things,” where knowing precise, angular information and speed are critical. Tachometers, encoders, and resolvers are among the most common types of rotational sensors – but getting their outputs into the digital realm requires conversion. In particular, a resolver-to-digital converter needs sufficient resolution, phase measurement, and even operation over a wide temperature range. These characteristics all describe the RD-19240FS-100 R-to-D converter family from DDC-I. Available in a small 64-pin LPCC (9 mm) or 52-pin MQFP (100 mm) package operating over -55 ?C to +125 ?C, the 19240 Series is also designed for low cost.

Programmable versions offer 10-, 12-, and 14-bit resolution, and resolution is highly repeatable to 1 LSB in 14-bit mode. Dynamic configurability is also handled via programmable dual-bandwidth output and tracking rate, and a BIT output can monitor for loss of signal, reference frequency, or tracking. Nominal supply voltage is + 5 VDC with an accuracy up to 8 arc-minutes, and an internal synthesized reference can provide up to a very wide 45-degree phase shift correction. If you’ve got a “spinny” sensor, resolve to give the 19240 family a look.

With some embedded products, saving SWaP and cost means living with anemic performance from low-end microcontrollers. But the NTC100-LX800 from Advansus is designed for high-quality multimedia data streams up to a 500 MHz clock rate. Advansus – a joint venture between ASUS and Advantech – specializes in value-add services. The company created this little Nano-ITX based box to solve multimedia problems in wireless security and remote monitoring applications.

The svelte 170 mm x 155 mm x 42 mm box is based upon the AMD Geode LX800, which, with its combination chipset, together sip a mere 2.5 W. Power is supplied via a 12 V source, and no fan is required to keep the box cool in most environments. I/O includes a Mini-PCI slot (for the radio/antenna), 24-bit TTL, 18-bit LVDS, AC97 audio, Ethernet, four USB ports, CompactFlash, and an internal HDD. There is additional room inside the chassis for optional add-on boards, making the NTC100-LX800 ideal for custom COTS-based military and homeland defense applications.

As cell phones proliferate across the civilian world, they’ve also found their way onto the battlefield. Not that they’re standard DoD-issued items; rather, military personnel often find that mobile phones present a convenient way to communicate non-classified information in urban settings and interface to POTS lines. But surprise! The military has the same problem as the rest of us: poor reception and spotty coverage. The High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) femtocell software reference design from Continuous Computing and picoChip aims to change that. A femto (10E-15) cell is basically a miniature cell phone tower/repeater/infrastructure station that drastically improves cell phone reception in spotty areas. Depending upon whom you believe, the market for low-cost, consumer, in-home femtocells may reach $850 million by 2011 (reference: Unstrung Insider). That’s a lot of COTS hardware, so you know it’s low cost.

Combining Continuous Computing’s Trillium Femtocell protocol software with picoChip’s PC8208 software and PC202 picoArray SoC, the reference design seeks to reduce project risk and complexity, while improving time-to-market. The design works with 3G/4G protocols at HSPA data rates, and the ARM-based PC202 maintains a low-memory footprint while supporting a Multicore DSP fabric for running picoChip’s PC8208 baseband code. Collectively, the design includes Trillium SIP and UMTS Generic Access Network (GAN) core network interface options, and is compliant to 3GPP specifications through Release 7. The reference design provides RF interface, data processing, and application processing support and can service voice, video, and high-speed wireless (cell-based) data. We don’t know about you, but we want one in our office.

As cell phones proliferate across the civilian world, they’ve also found their way onto the battlefield. Not that they’re standard DoD-issued items; rather, military personnel often find that mobile phones present a convenient way to communicate non-classified information in urban settings and interface to POTS lines. But surprise! The military has the same problem as the rest of us: poor reception and spotty coverage. The High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) femtocell software reference design from Continuous Computing and picoChip aims to change that. A femto (10E-15) cell is basically a miniature cell phone tower/repeater/infrastructure station that drastically improves cell phone reception in spotty areas. Depending upon whom you believe, the market for low-cost, consumer, in-home femtocells may reach $850 million by 2011 (reference: Unstrung Insider). That’s a lot of COTS hardware, so you know it’s low cost.

Combining Continuous Computing’s Trillium Femtocell protocol software with picoChip’s PC8208 software and PC202 picoArray SoC, the reference design seeks to reduce project risk and complexity, while improving time-to-market. The design works with 3G/4G protocols at HSPA data rates, and the ARM-based PC202 maintains a low-memory footprint while supporting a Multicore DSP fabric for running picoChip’s PC8208 baseband code. Collectively, the design includes Trillium SIP and UMTS Generic Access Network (GAN) core network interface options, and is compliant to 3GPP specifications through Release 7. The reference design provides RF interface, data processing, and application processing support and can service voice, video, and high-speed wireless (cell-based) data. We don’t know about you, but we want one in our office.

Thinking of using a CPU, chipset, or other device that conforms to the Power Architecture? If so, you’re going to be a happy camper when you feast your eyes on three new tools from the Power.org organization: Solutions Portal; the Power Architecture Early Tools Development Matrix; and the Power.org Target Debug Capabilities Specification. We’ve bestowed upon this set of information tools an Editor’s Choice award because it eases design efforts for the ever-popular Power Architecture. Collectively, the tools are designed to save you time, provide access to resources, and enhance interoperability and architecture compliance. First up, the Portal is a one-stop repository for all things Power: tools, software, hardware, and services. Architects and designers should “shop” here first for information, and vendors should make sure their products are up to date (www.power.org/solutions).

The Early Tools Development Matrix (see graphic) demonstrates the breadth and depth of development tools available for Power Architecture cores and SoCs. More than a pretty face, the matrix is a categorized and comprehensive listing of available tools. Finally, the Target Debug Capabilities Specification defines a common set of debugging requirements for Power-based products. The spec, which is an extension of the Power Instruction Set Architecture, includes required and recommended functions, environments, and debug features. Sort of a no-brainer, the spec brings uniformity and interoperability to the large and growing Power ecosystem.

Java is emerging as an extremely efficient, rigorous, and low-footprint way to talk to hardware – especially in real-time, deterministic systems. Moreover, the emerging JSR-302 safety-critical version of Java tightens up the code even more by providing assurance and guaranteed performance timing (and control over garbage collection!). So it’s a natural that these benefits, when needed, should be bolted up to the most popular RTOS in military applications: VxWorks. And sort of like that beloved Reese’s “chocolate/peanut butter” commercial, Aonix and Wind River Systems are all giggly with their newfound software marriage.

Aonix’s PERC Pico 1.1, which is based upon the emerging JSR-302 spec, allows developers to write deeply embedded code for resource-constrained hard real-time systems. Code constructs include device drivers, interrupt handlers, control plane communications, and even multimedia signal processing inner loops. The “hundreds of kilobytes” footprint (per Aonix) is easy on your system, while maintaining the modularity and portability essential for long-life military programs. When bolted to VxWorks, and facilitated through Eclipse plug-ins via Wind River’s Workbench development tool, designers can cover the full software stack: from “bare metal” all the way up to application code.

Mercury Computer Systems has built a successful business on two pretexts: massive computing power and nearly infinite application customization. The company’s latest foray takes these hallmarks into a third dimension: Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP). Dubbed the PowerBlock 50 Engineering Development Kit (EDK), Mercury is showcasing what might be a new paradigm in the deployable parallel computing industry: system horsepower you can hold in your hand. The 100 GFLOP, 7-pound, 4.1” x 5.3” x 5.8” “brick” is designed for payloads allowing 10 pounds or less. Think man-launched UAVs, “totable” systems, or svelte autonomous ground vehicles.

The PowerBlock 50 is composed of two units: the liquid-cooled computer box and the Heat Rejection Unit; both are designed as a closed-loop desktop/lab system to showcase what’s possible in a flyable package. The EDK also includes an Ethernet switch, multiport RS-232 to USB converter, cables, and power supplies. Though Mercury is being somewhat mum on the actual CPU contents inside the box, there will be three configurations based upon a Freescale PowerQUICC III CPU, a Xilinx Virtex-4, and a TBD Intel processor. Each flavor includes serial ports, 250 GB of SATA HDD, and a Linux development environment. Engineers need only supply their own host CPU and bottle of ethylene glycol or distilled water for cooling.

Originally designed for digital cameras, 4G cellular infrastructure, and headsets, JPEG2000 is a more efficient algorithm that offers offers superior compression and resolution within the same memory footprint. 4DSP’s JPEG2000 Hardware CODEC FPGA Accelerator is a PMC module designed to take advantage of JPEG2000’s compression rate. Based upon two ADV212 devices and a low-cost Xilinx Spartan-3AN FPGA (visible on the mezzanine module in photo), the platform can grab and compress up to 140 Mpixels/s from two independent cameras.

The board can either encode the video frames prior to or after applying an advanced video/imaging algorithm. The base PMC’s Virtex-4 or -5 devices can perform real-time pre- or post-image processing on raw data, or can be programmed to correct affects such as brightness and barrel distortion or enhance images. For defense applications, savvy designers could probably load up edge-detection, motion-detection, or smoke/haze filtering algorithms. For superior digital image compression, JPEG2000 implemented on 4DSP’s CODEC Accelerator is a clear winner.

Since the introduction of their GateFlow family of IP libraries for FPGAs some years ago, DSP expert Pentek has built its product line around front-end signals acquisition products and FPGAs. Their latest PMC module called the Model 7151 (Pentek is nothing if not devoid of fanfare in their nomenclature) is a variation on the company’s tried-and-true theme. They take the fastest and highest-resolution A/Ds they can find – in this case from a vendor who won’t allow their name revealed! – bolt them to a mux, and flow signals into the biggest and baddest Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA they can find. In this case, the 7151 has some unique characteristics that make it ideal for “simultaneously capturing hundreds of signals spanning a wide range of modulation types, signal bandwidths, and antenna sources.” Pentek told us this translates to: locating, triangulating, and even listening in on insurgents’ GSM cell phone calls. Of course, other SIGINT applications arise, too. The card’s four 200 MHz 16-bit A/Ds feed an FPGA DDC IP core that breaks up into four banks of 64 DDC channels, a total of 256. Each channel is independently controllable, has a 31-bit tuning frequency setting from DC to fs/2, and can be decimated from 128 to 1,024 in steps of 64. For example, at a 200 MHz sampling rate, the available output bandwidths range from 156 KHz to 1.25 MHz. At the front end, the A/Ds can handle up to 100 MHz bandwidths, a 37 percent increase over previous Pentek modules. In summary, this card is ideal for mating to different antennas and is used to search out a variety of signals. For convenience, the Model 7651 is a PCI (desktop) version for lab setups. [Editor’s note: Pentek recently told us that they were expanding their PMCs into the data recorder market – a natural extension for the 7151.]

GMS has a reputation for building boards that set the standard for a plethora of features, hence the term “Swiss army knife.” If we could show you both a photo and the block diagram for their latest CompactPCI SBC, you’d see what we mean. This 3U conduction-cooled CompactPCI board is able to cool a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU with 4 MB of L2, up to 4 GB of 667 MHz DDR-2 SDRAM, and 64 GB of SATA SSD (via flash). With all these hot components, the board dissipates only 40 W, which makes the Pinnacle (CC70x) board tops in terms of features+power+size.

Designed to crank out dual video graphics via DVI or RGB (including the military favorite sync-on-green), the board also mates to an optional second-slot Multi-Media Module that adds two more video ports using the NVIDIA Quadro FX supporting 2,048 x 1,536 pixel resolution at 85 Hz, audio, and other goodies. The Pinnacle itself has so many ports we can’t list them all here. Here are a few just to whet your appetite: dual 1 GbE with TOE, four USB, two serial, four SATA with RAID, and a Special Applications Module interface that adds more I/O than a circa 1930s ATT telephone switchboard. Both air- and conduction-cooled versions operate over -40 °C to +85 °C and even include heaters and health monitoring to assure operation at temperature extremes.

Rugged Small Form Factor (SFF) boards are all the rage. That’s because many commercial and civilian systems – think digital cameras, cell phones, and portable navigation devices – need to withstand the occasional tumble to the pavement. But what’s highly unusual about the XM50 SFF from MEN Micro is that a) it’s available in an optional fully boxed conduction-cooled wrapper; and b) it’ll soon be available from other vendors as an open standard via ANSI-VITA 59 (RSE, Rugged System-On-Module Express). These two items are enough to warrant a closer look at this 1.5 GHz PowerQUICC III MPC8548-based SBC.

Designed for communications applications, the module is similar to a PICMG-sized COM board at 95 mm x 125 mm. The little “ears” shown are used to conduct PWB heat away to a fully boxed billet frame (not shown) that also acts as 100 percent ESM protection. Dissipating only 12 W and operating over -40 °C to +85 °C, the board is also coated for humidity protection and all components are soldered for shock and vibration tolerance. There’s up to 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM with ECC, nonvolatile SRAM and Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), six USB ports, three 1 GbE ports, three SATA ports, and a x1/2/4/8 lane PCIe link. As with all COM-style boards, a base carrier adds more functionality and breakout connections. We are very keen on the prospects for this board in rugged applications. Besides that, the fact that it’ll soon be a non-VME but interoperable VITA standard bodes well for other vendors to start building their own versions.

By now you’re no doubt aware that VPX is the next stop on VME’s roadmap; however, it’s not backward compatible with either VME or VXS cards. Instead, it requires a split backplane to bridge the various signals and pins to each board type. The wily folks at Extreme Engineering had a brainstorm: Why not use the same split backplane approach to preserve a 3U CompactPCI investment when designing in new VPX boards? Enter the XTend4010 3U hybrid (aka “split”) backplane that supports four VPX slots, three CompactPCI slots, a GbE slot, and a fabric/bridge slot.

To complete the system swap, designers can add the XChange3010 to bridge from PCIe to parallel PCI, plus the XChange3011 that adds 16 redundant GbE ports to map into the VPX slots as an alternate control/data plane mechanism. The 3011 offers optional front panel connectivity, and the 3010 includes a PrPMC/PMC slot just in case you want additional I/O or onboard processing. All told, this is a pretty handy setup to maintain a legacy 3U CompactPCI investment while adding next-gen VPX functionality.

For years Parvus has been bringing rugged Small Form Factor (SFF) products to the civilian and military markets. The company’s latest effort, the DuraCOR 820 shown here, is a svelte 3" high and weighs about 3 lbs. The “little cube that could” is designed for command and control on the move, unmanned vehicle operator control, or C4ISR applications. Stuffed with a PC/104-Plus Pentium M-based SBC, the rugged cube is fully qualified to MIL-STD-810F for altitude, thermal profile, shock, vibration, and humidity. It can operate over -40 °C to +71 °C, withstand 15 g operating shock, 95 percent humidity, 60,000 feet altitude, and survive many aircraft and helicopter vibration profiles. Equipped with an Intel 1.4 GHz Pentium M CPU and SSD preloaded with WinXP or Linux, the watertight cube has multiple I/O options on the front panel, including dual 10/100 Ethernet, MIL-STD-704E power input, analog video, three USB ports, two RS-232 ports, digital I/O, keyboard, and mouse. Since the inside modules are PC/104-Plus, additional I/O is easily added, such as a 12-channel GPS, additional serial RS-232/422/485, multiple 1553 channels, or even customer-specific I/O.

In an era of falling NAND flash ROM prices, many of us carry around over 1 GB of data on our keychains. So why is 8 Mb – a mere fraction of that amount – something to get excited about? The answer is simple: When data is written to these SRAMs and a tiny glitch such as a power spike or other anomaly occurs, the data is safe and secure. In defense systems, such a power interruption cannot be tolerated else lives might be lost. Previously, small amounts of serial EEPROMs or battery-backed SRAMs were used to prevent critical data loss, but they were either slow, required CPU intervention of an unforeseen event, or had that nasty battery to maintain.

Simtek’s STK14EE8 and STK14EE16 nvSRAMs are available in x8 or x16 widths and use a captured charge to maintain data integrity. Read access is as fast as 25 ns with a 45 ns R/W cycle time. Unlike flash, they feature unlimited endurance, and data is automatically recalled from buried nonvolatile store when the power returns; no CPU is required. Data retention exceeds 20 years, they are powered from a standard 3.0 VDC supply, and, of course, they’re available in industrial temperatures from -40 °C to +85 °C. These fast, reliable nvSRAMs are available in svelte 44-pin/54-pin (x8/x16) TSOPII or 48-pin BGA packages. Future versions of the family will be denser and might have security features such as scrubbing.

Sure, just about any COTS module can be made to work over an extended temperature: Add fans to cool it and even heaters to warm it. But in many industrial and defense applications, moving parts mean reduced reliability. That’s why Sundance Multiprocessor Technology removed the fan and standard heat sink on their flagship ADC and DAC module called the SMT370. Instead, a custom-made anodized aluminum heat sink and Faraday cage were added. In a zero airflow environment, the module is rated to 40 °C ambient. Pretty impressive.

Of course, this is partially accomplished with industrial-temperature components. Now dubbed the SMT370-I, there are twin 14-bit ADCs clocked at 105 MHz, along with a pair of 16-bit DACs clocked up to 400 MHz with interpolation. Preprocessing and data manipulation are facilitated via the onboard Xilinx Virtex-II FPGA, and Sundance has partnered with 3L Diamond FPGA to offer cores and other software-configured functions. Two Sundance High-Speed Bus Connectors and two 20 MBps comm ports complement user-defined pins used for external connectors. As with all the company’s modules, the SMT370 is supported with firmware and development tools from vendors including TI, Xilinx, and The MathWorks.

For the past several years, I’ve noticed a proliferation of rack-mount equipment strapped down or shock-isolated in the back of Humvees. The reason is that the go-anywhere vehicle often serves as the platform for comms gear or other special-purpose electronic systems. But 4U-sized servers and drawer-sized boxes consume way too much space. The 1U MicroTCA MTC5070 from Performance Technologies seeks to change that with an innovative design meant to house six single AdvancedMC modules horizontally, not vertically. Flow-through cooling and internal baffles, complete with two sets of push-pull fans, allow 40 W per slot, a 300 W PSU, and a slim 1U height that’s perfect for managed vehicle-mount installations.

Each of the six slots supports PCIe and Ethernet switching, and there is SATA/SAS slot-to-slot connectivity. An integrated dual 10/100/1000 GbE switch provides inter-box communications, while onboard MicroTCA carrier and shelf managers provide PICMG-style management, IMPI, and remote diagnostics. Performance Technologies offers numerous AdvancedMC cards (such as x86 or PowerPC processor nodes), storage, and video cards. The company’s NexusWare Linux Distribution meets Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) 4.0 requirements. The MTC5070 1U MicroTCA platform can run off of AC or DC power.

The rugged, industrial, and military markets are too compelling to ignore. Large, specialty off-shore suppliers like Portwell have set up North American design offices to take advantage of the U.S. market while bringing their considerable technical leverage to bear. Case in point: American Portwell’s ECX-style small form factor SBC called the PEB-2736. Using Intel’s own ECX size and Intel’s brand-new Atom processor Z500 series, the 146 mm x 105 mm “3.5-inch” board is an ideal platform for an embedded PC. The 45 nm Intel CPU and chipset consume a mere 5 W while supporting a 533 MHz FSB. There is a single 200-pin SODIMM socket for up to 1 GB of DDR-2 SDRAM, along with a CF socket for NV storage.

Other I/O is as you’d expect from a PC: dual graphics via a 24-bit LVDS connector for a display fed from Intel’s SFF Integrated Graphics chipset plus an SDVO connector, two USB ports, one RS-232, and a handful of GPIO and SDIO from onboard Connectors. There’s also a PCIe x1 connector for a user-supplied daughtercard – handy for many defense systems, which always have proprietary interfaces. Besides these “internal” I/O connections, rear panel I/O includes four more USB ports, 5.1 channel audio, and another RS-232 serial port. While the normal operating temperature for the PEB-2736 is 0 to 60 °C, extended temperature versions are available that operate from -40 °C to +85 °C. And since this is a PC, you can run Windows, XPe, Linux, and myriad other OS choices on this small form factor board.

BittWare was once known as an exclusive Analog Devices SHARC supplier. In fact, the company was a leading supplier of SHARC boards and routinely “beat up” on PowerPC designs. No more. Over the past 18 months, the company developed their so-called hybrid architecture to combine the best of both worlds: SHARC or CPU plus Altera FPGA. Their latest product is one we overlooked earlier this year, though it did appear in the April issue of this magazine under New Products: the GT-6U-VME (GTV6) VITA 41 VXS board. Combining twin Stratix II GX FPGAs, two ADSP-TS201S TigerSHARCs, and 3 GB of DDR2 SDRAM, the conduction-cooled board is designed to marry reconfigurability with the SHARC’s legendary flow-through DSP architecture.

Targeting radar, sonar, unmanned vehicles, and SDR, flexibility with speed are the core tenets of this board. It supports 5 GBps of simultaneous external I/O and 14.4 GFLOPS of floating point math capability. As well, it’s fully programmable – owing to the SHARC’s flexibility and the infinite reconfigurability of those FPGAs. BittWare’s ATLANTiS software framework marries the components nicely, handling I/O routing and interprocessor/FPGA communication and loading. A custom bridge chip supports 32-bit, 66 MHz PCI and GbE. Tundra’s Tsi148 then bolts PCI to VME.

The beauty of PCI Express is not only its speed, but how this desktop technology is becoming ubiquitous and inexpensive. With its low overhead and efficient protocol, PCIe might make a better way to link host computers together than simply using Ethernet. Even better – PCIe supports cable connections up to tens of meters long. One Stop Systems, a provider of industrial-strength communications and computing products, is banking on PCIe as a replacement for Ethernet (or InfiniBand) in ultra-high performance host computers. The company’s SuperSwitch family allows communications via PCIe between two, five, or eight compute nodes.

Comprising a PCIe x4 Express Card or a PCIe card, x4 cables, and a switch, the SuperSwitch family includes everything needed to connect host machines. The ExpressNet software manages the interfaces, handles the protocols, and keeps the 10 Gbps connections humming. Switches come in a variety of form factors, including CompactPCI, mezzanines, or 1U sizes. The 1U SuperSwitch 3 has eight ports and can scream along at an astounding 40 Gbps. Ethernet can’t even come close.

Despite the acronym soup, the Time-Triggered Protocol specified by DO-254 and DO-178B Level A safety-critical systems no longer requires an ASIC to run. Instead, TTTech Computertechnik is making available its TTP controller IP (Intellectual Property), which can be synthesized into Altera Cyclone II or III FPGAs. The significance is not only the elimination of an ASIC in-system, but adding the protocol to a low-cost FPGA leaves additional gates free to replace other in-system functions.

Altera’s Cyclone FPGAs can operate over -40 ?C to +125 ?C (Tjunction), making them an ideal solution for extended temperature civilian and military applications. In fact, TTTech says the TTP will be deployed in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A380, as well as being used in the Lockheed Martin F-16. The TTP controller IP comes as a synthesizable netlist for Altera’s Cyclone FPGAs, or even in Altera’s HardCopy II structured ASICs.

Intrusion and perimeter detection are essential for homeland security (such as border patrol), autonomous military RECON scouting, or securing a forward bivouac area. But the trouble with many sensors is they are either power hungry, not easily networked, or both. GreenPeak Technologies claims to have solved these problems – and more – with their Lime CM-08 module. The tiny 5 cm2 (< 1 square inch) device functions as a stand-alone communications system with transceiver, antenna, and low-power mesh network software onboard.

The wireless transceiver and sensor interface allow users to connect appropriate sensors such as photocells, vibration detectors, infrared, or other devices. But the unit also doesn’t require an external battery, relying instead on external solar, electromagnetic, or piezo-electric transducers for power. The onboard software carefully adapts the available power to the device’s consumption. Finally, built-in mesh technology enables designers to create extended wireless IEEE 802.15.4 open-standard, self-healing, and self-forming low-cost networks based upon the ZigBee Alliance. Future versions hope to shrink the CM-08 module down to chip size.

Well, things will be “all better” when JTRS is widely deployed. Joint service radios will interoperate, there’ll be more bandwidth, and IP-based networks will rule the battlefield. But until then … the Sealevel Systems ACC-188 USB synchronous interface adapter allows a USB-equipped laptop (aren’t they all?) to interface with a variety of legacy military radios. Boasting high throughput, the adapter allows war fighters to transmit and receive data such as GPS maps, images, coordinates, and even IM-type communications. Handy for the soldier updating his MySpace page. The adapter is compatible with the following radios: Harris PRC-117 and PRC-150, Motorola LST-5, Raytheon PSC-5D and ARC-231, Rockwell Collins ARC-210, and Thales PRC-148. Additionally, the adapter can be used by most digital radios that have a synchronous serial port. Sealevel’s included PDA-184 software product provides a GUI to manage the data transfer, protocols, and interface with the appropriate radio at the other end of the cable. We witnessed this product at the recent AFCEA conference in San Diego, and its simple elegance looks very compelling. [Full disclosure: Sealevel provided editors with a promotional gift as part of the product launch.]

So OK, the title’s a bit silly but seeks to illustrate what you knew was inevitable: two dual-core Intel CPUs on the same board. In this case, the SVME-1900 from Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing boasts two independent ultra-low voltage 1.67 GHz Intel Core Duo processors. This air-cooled 6U VME SBC also boasts dual PMC expansion sites with front panel I/O.

Other specs for this board include 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM with ECC, 2 GB of USB user flash formatted as two individual USB drives, and the Intel E7520 Memory Controller Hub (MCH)/6300ESB I/O Controller Hub (ICH). For I/O, there are two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 12 serial ports (4 RS-232; 8 RS-422), 2 SATA ports, and ... wait for it, 12 digital I/O lines. As always, CWCEC’s products are available in a variety of ruggedization levels, and the company’s Guardian Select life cycle maintenance services are darned near essential for military and long-life programs.

How often do you think about the screws, washers, or standoffs in an embedded system? Yeah, me neither. But you might put a little more thought into the electrical Connectors – but just barely. The thing is, it’s those connectors that take much of the abuse in deployed electronics, especially if the system must withstand MIL-STD-810 or MIL-STD-1344. ITT Cannon’s Chip on Flex filter connector is designed to meet MIL-STD-1344 testing, boasting 1,000 thermal shock cycles from -55 ?C to +125 ?C.

Compared to ceramic planar array block capacitors used in conventional filter connectors, the MIL-DTL-38999 style chip-on-flex technology mounts individual chip caps on a pad adjacent to each feed through contact. This eliminates stress points, increasing connector life from a mere 50 cycles to 20 times that. The connector handles voltages from 200 Vdc to 120 VAC rms at 400 Hz. Current ratings range from 5 A, 7.5 A, and 15 A, depending upon wire gauge.

Looked closely at a circuit board lately? Designers have to contend with more voltages than a drawer filled with old cell phone chargers. And myriad voltages mean DC/DC converters galore, consuming power and precious real estate. RECOM Power Laboratory claims a breakthrough in high power and diminutive size. The company’s RP-15xxxxSA series boasts 15 W in an incredible 1" x 1" (25.4 x 25.4 mm) package at only 0.39" (10 mm) height. This compares with competing devices measuring 1" x 2" – saving a cool square inch of board space.

The converter is galvanically isolated, operates at up to 87 percent efficiency, and can withstand an ambient temp of 60 ?C without needing special cooling. That’s an impressive power density of 2.3 W/cm3. Outputs are set at 3.3 V, 5 V, 12 V, and 15 V, while inputs include: 9-18 V, 9-36 V, 18-36 V, 18-75 V, and 36-75 V. The case is a six-sided, nickel-coated copper material, and vacuum potting on the bottom assures high shock and vibration tolerance.

Ethernet is as ubiquitous on the modern battlefield as disposable batteries. All manner of equipment, be it ground-, ship-, or air-based relies on 10, 100, or 1000 Mbps Ethernet ports. So Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing decided to bring 1 and 10GbE to the up-and-coming VME VPX form factor. The company’s VPX6-685 FireBlade II resides on a 6U VPX module and is specifically designed for networking in extremely harsh environments. With switching and routing capabilities, plus VITA 48 REDI two-level maintenance options, this board is ready to travel.

The heart of the board includes 12, 20, or 24 1GbE interfaces capable of autonegotiating 10/100/1000 speeds. The board can also support 4x 10GbE ports as part of a blazing-fast backbone configuration. Current versions of the board offer front-panel optical ports (1000BASE-SX), while future versions will route fiber over one of the VPX Connectors. There’s IPv4/v6 support, wirespeed routing, enhanced security, BIT, and a whole host (no pun) of management interfaces, protocols, and software from CLI and Telnet to SNMP and NAT.

Disk drives are so inexpensive these days – under $1 per GB – that we’re saving everything instead of deleting it. But in deployed platforms and systems, where collecting and storing the data is the whole point, it’s not enough just to have beaucoup storage. One needs assurances of reliable data storage. That’s the point behind Phoenix International’s RPC12 SAS/SATA II 3U RAID system: ruggedness, reliability, portability. Housing up to 12 HDDs in carriers, the 3U (5.25") system has redundancy and ruggedness built in everywhere you look.

Capable of withstanding 60 g shock at 2 ms, operating over 5 ?C to 60 ?C (even more with sealed drives), and up to 40,000 feet with sealed HDDs, this baby’s in it for the long ride. It accommodates RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 50, NRAID, and JBOD as well as dual hot-swap PSUs and cooling fans. Host interfaces include 2 or 4 Gbps Fibre Channel, serial attached SCSI, or iSCSI. Input voltage ranges from 40 to 440 Hz, and from 90 to 240 VAC. As for software, the unit interfaces to Windows, Linux, and Unix and includes a management GUI and failover software.

Recently selected by rugged shoebox supplier Parvus in a U.S. Navy aircraft upgrade program, the DDC BU-65578Cx PC/104-Plus 1553 card is ideal for fitting 1553 into tight spaces. Based upon DDC’s own Extended Enhanced Mini-ACE (E2MA) 1553 chipset – the offspring of an industry standard – the card can bring up to four dual-redundant 1553 channels to bear in legacy systems. With 2 MB of parity memory per channel and BIT, robust transmissions and data transfer are assured.

But interestingly, MIL-STD-1553 is rarely found alone. It’s often accompanied by myriad other legacy and proprietary connectivity schemes, especially in system upgrades. For this reason, the PC/104-Plus card also includes five user-programmable digital I/O channels, an IRIG-B time code input, an external time-tag clock input, and a 48-bit/1 microsecond time stamp capability. As expected, a -40 ?C to +85 ?C temperature version is available.

Military programs are acutely concerned with data and software security, especially when it comes to sanitizing disks used in actual missions. And the same thing applies to desktop computers from the Pentagon or to any forwardly deployed operations center. But on the flip side, sometimes it’s necessary to replicate a disk’s entire content for back-up purposes, or for use in parallel missions or platforms. While not designed with the DoD/MoD/DND in mind, Aleratec’s HDD Cruiser might be just the product you’re looking for.

The desktop unit can simultaneously sanitize up to four 3.5" HDDs without requiring any connection to a PC or network (2.5" drives require an adapter). Disks can be wiped using NSA-approved algorithms such as the seven-pass “DoD Wipe,” or a simple one- or three-pass erase can also be performed. Once temporarily installed in a tray, the drives are mechanically locked during operation to prevent tampering or interruption. The aluminum trays are also designed to conduct heat away from drives during extended operations, and the built-in 10 ultra-quiet fans also keep temperatures down. Finally, the Cruiser can replicate one drive’s contents to the other three simultaneously.

With Intel driving its processors well down into deep, deep submicron (45 nm) territory, Multicore CPUs now run faster while sipping less power. Add to this the huge economic benefits of consumer volumes, and then small form factor boards like the MI935 from IBASE make good sense in many quasi-rugged military applications. The Mini-ITX form factor SBC supports Intel’s Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Duo/Celeron 400 Sequence processors (Conroe-L) and Intel’s latest Q35 Express chipset with a full 1,333 MHz FSB.

With notebook computer-sized dimensions of 6.7" x 6.7" (170 x 170 mm), the SBC has two DDR2 DIMM slots and can support up to 4 GB of DRAM. There are also a 10/100BASE-T Ethernet port, integrated VGA, 8x USB 2.0, 2x SATA II, 1x eSATA, and 2x COM ports. Optional I/O includes a 1x PCIe GbE, a second VGA via PCIe (x16), and four more COM ports. With a company focus on industrial PC products, the MI935 might be a good choice for full-featured but small-sized PC-based military systems.

Whether on the battlefield, at the depot, the supply dump, or in the ordnance magazine, explosion potential is deadly serious business. That’s why the Ruffneck Zone 1 Explosion Proof Computer from Computer Dynamics (a GE Fanuc company) might be the way to go for peace of mind. Equipped with an Intel Pentium M 1.6 GHz single board computer inside, the box is designed in compliance with Europe’s ATEX (from the French: ATmospheres EXplosibles). Zone 1 compliance defines an area where the chance of explosion can exist for short periods of time, but an explosive atmosphere won’t accumulate for more than a total of 1,000 hours within a 12-month period. The system is also certified for a UL HAZLOC (hazardous location) environment.

The direct sunlight readable 15" (diagonal) LCD is impact resistant, supports bare- and gloved-hand operation, and includes software dimming for darker environments. The SBC supports 2 GB of DDRAM, a 40 GB HDD, optional CompactFlash SDD, and Ethernet or Wi-Fi. There’s a watchdog timer, and the Ruffneck runs Windows XP. Designed to operate over -40 ?C to +60 ?C with optional heaters, the NEMA4 enclosure can be hosed down for HAZMAT operations. The Ruffneck weighs only 45 pounds plus the yoke or ARM mount. With this computer, you won’t be blown away. That’s a good thing.

As FPGAs trounce the world of DSP designs, having more of them – with more I/O and more memory – is “more better.” Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing’s CHAMP-FX2 – the latest incarnation of the company’s venerable CHAMP DSP series – uses two Xilinx Virtex-5 LXT FPGAs to provide true heterogeneous processing. A “lowly” Freescale 8641D PowerPC processor handles general purpose processing, as well as DSP algorithms in its own right. Collectively, these three nodes are mounted on a 6U VPX board that affords more I/O capabilities than Bill Gates has copies of Windows. Well, maybe not that many, but a lot.

Each FPGA node is swimming in memory: up to 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM (4.4 GBps peak), and up to 32 MB QDR-II+ SRAM (8.8 GBps peak). Additionally, nodes are interconnected in various ways: four-lane RocketIO LVDS; four-lane high-speed serial links to the backplane, XMC site, and one optionally to the front panel; and 18 pairs of discrete LVDS to the VPX-equipped backplane in case you want to roll your own. And the 8641D dual core is no slouch, either. It can run up to 1.33 GHz, has up to 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM with ECC, and 512 MB of flash plus 128 KB of NVRAM. There’s Ethernet (2), serial (2), and an onboard Serial RapidIO switch spidering lines all over the board and out to the VPX backplane. There’s more, but we’re out of room. Check it out at the Curtiss-Wright website.

All that desktop Multicore goodness was bound to make some mil designers want to cozy up to some determinism in the form of a good, old-fashioned RTOS. So Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing (CWCEC) [will we ever stop chuckling at the length of that company name?] broke down and ported LynxOS SE 5.0 to its 6U VME SVME/DMV 1901 Intel-based SBC. Since not all RTOSs are created equal, it’s important to note the POSIX-conformant RTOS is also the basis for LynuxWorks’ efforts with MILS and separation kernels.

Now appearing on a SVME/DMV 1901 near you, LynxOS SE 5.0 is a RTOS Board Support Package (BSP) providing a Linux-binary compatible OS to enable faster mission-critical application development. LynxOS SE 5.0 also provides “medium assurance security” as afforded by the single-level OS protection profile. In addition, the system offers an enhanced Linux ABI and an updated GNU tool chain for a streamlined execution environment. Meanwhile, the rugged SVME/DMV 1901’s Core 2 Duo and VME64x air-cooled design supports a wide range of front panel I/O, including SCSI and video graphics, while rear I/O configurations lend support to optional dual video display.

We've said it for years: Conduction-cooled 3U CompactPCI is an ideal form factor for small spaces, especially for military retrofits. Rugged supplier Aitech completely agrees. Their E192 modular enclosure is lightweight (relatively speaking), sports a removable and modular PSU, and is completely sealed for harsh mechanical, chemical, or EMI environments.

The box houses a two-slot backplane for ANSI/IEEE 30.1-2002 conduction-cooled 3U CompactPCI and PMC modules. The conduction-cooled cold plate chassis design can dissipate over 50 W at 71 ?C while maintaining a maximum 14 ?C at the card edge. The MIL-STD-704 PSU provides 28 V, and other options are available. A backplane transition module supports custom front panel connections, typically for circular MIL-C-38999 Connectors.

So you’ve hardened the chassis, ruggedized the boards, chosen solid-state storage for reliability – even shock-mounted the LCD. But what about the LCD controller board? That’s the realm of Digital View’s HE-1400 and HE-1600 Series rugged LCD controllers. These COTS LRUs specifically target industrial and military installations with a -40 ?C to +80 ?C operation, and “dirty” 12 VDC power that can vary by as much as 25 percent. Shock and vibration are handled from the board design up, including locking Connectors and such attention to detail as low-mass tantalum capacitors that don’t act like cantilevered masses. They are even available in conformal-coated versions.

The HE-1400 is 4.2" x 3.6" and supports LVDS and TTL LCD panels at SXGA (4:3) and WXGA (16:9 at 1,366 x 768 pixels) feeding DVI and ARGB. The HE-1600 is a fully buffered, multisync interface controller feeding both analog and digital up to UXGA resolution (that’s 1,600 x 1,200) over DVI, dual VGA, composite video, S-Video, and Component Video. It too handles standard 4:3 and widescreen 16:9. Both controllers feature remote management via RS-232.

The company SBS Technologies popularized the conduction-cooled flavor of 3U CompactPCI single board computers because the size offers such a nifty space savings over 6U. The 3U module can easily fit into legacy ATR boxes, making it a nice upgrade path. Similarly, GE Fanuc Embedded Systems – which purchased SBS a couple of years ago – hasn’t forgotten about legacy migration with its latest 3U conduction-cooled CompactPCI SBC, the CR5. That’s because it’s FFF backward compatible with the previous CR4 version.

Sporting an Intel Core Duo LV running at 1.66 GHz, the SBC includes up to 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM with ECC, a 400 MHz memory bus via Intel’s 3100 ICH memory and I/O controller, and a 667 MHz FSB. There are two GbE ports, two SATA ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and eight of the ever-popular-in-defense GPIO ports. An optional mezzanine card adds CompactFlash and SVGA graphics.